Friday, April 06, 2012

Tea Party Enablers

Best thing I read all day is Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic Monthly (h/t, Bruce Bartlett) how it is time to quit romanticizing Tea Party loonies. They had a chance at Jon Huntsman, Mitch Daniels, Tim Pawlenty and Gary Johnson and they wind up with mad,, impulsive crushes on the likes of Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich--way more than evidence enough for the proposition that they are not to be taken seriously.

So far fine, but it is also time to bitch-slap the mainstream "respectable people" who tiptoe around the Tea Party because they don't want to damage their own careers. Well you know what? Your careers aren't that-all important to me. If you can't get ahead in politics without pandering to these nutjobs, well then go find another line of work.

Yes, yes, I know. Boring from within blah blah. Got to stay on board so I can be a steadying force, blah blah. If we leave them alone they'll only get worse, blah blah, and politics is the art of compromise. Beguiling halftruths all, but if we are ever (again) going to have a responsible center in this country, it will not be achieved by all these pretend centrists who are willing to cut and run whenever they hear the dog whistle. And by the way, if you expect those guys to thank you for what you're doing, you better think again. When (!?) they finally do get real power, chances are you will find that your kind of squishy centrism will get pushed right on off the cliff.